And Away They Go

Our neighborhood is changing.

Joel and Melodie came back in late March from spending 4 months over in Eastern Tennessee with her sisters. This soon went up in their yard.

They started their packing - which wasn’t much “they were starting over.” After only 2 days they had 16 offers on their house and a SOLD sign up. They were anxious to get going and start their new life in a mobile home park in Bean Station TN. I’m gonna miss Joel, he was one of us walkers. 

A few weeks later this happened.

These signs have solar lights 

Our friend and neighbor across the street and over one house announced they were moving. Rob was finally retiring and Margaret has convinced him to move closer to the grandkids. In New Jersey. The house sold in 2 days. Margaret has been a friend and great neighbor for 14 1/2 years. She was the one who gave me oodles and oodles of fabric. I’ve made 9 quilts with the material so far including one for her, and my sister Mary, who both were going thru chemo treatments. Margaret is just 3 months older than me. I hope she stays healthy and spend all her time with her grandkids, while Rob plays golf. Margaret liked to stroll up and down the street and sometimes would tag along with us on our walks.

This happen yesterday.

This house is right across the street from Sharen. Nate and Jeannette inherited a house from her beloved Aunt and are moving as soon as they can get the remodeling done at the new house and this one sells. Should happen soon if it goes like the others. They are staying in west Elgin, but a bigger house and yard for their dogs. Archer their boxer bit Sharen on one of our walks. We won’t miss him.

I’m glad that Mike and I moved while we were younger out here to our last home 19 years ago. 

Basketball - Volleyball - Football Oh My

The last few months have been a mix of Owen and Luke’s basketball, Roger and Luke’s volleyball and Roger playing football.  We have spent many a Saturday in the city jumping from gym to gym loving watching the Flory boys playing sports. 

Owens basketball

Owens team is the winning team. We keep trying to get him to shoot, but he explained to us his job is to pass to the open player and set the screen. He did a very good job of it too.

Bringing the ball up

Luke is not the tallest on his basketball team. He is quickest though. He loves to bring the ball up nd he has no trouble shooting if he’s open. This game the team scored 24 Luke had 20.

Serving underhand

Luke’s volleyball team didn’t win many, but those boys had the best time. Luke learned the overhand serve this year and tried it out a few time. 

Roger settter

Roger’s team played some very competitive opponents. His team won a few. Roger was the team cheerleader and he caught on real quick how to bump the ball over the net on the third hit.

Mary was coach assistant 

I tried to get a picture of Mary with both Luke and Roger in between their games. She was helping the head coach with both teams. 

Indoor football

And my favorite to watch (I know your not supposed to have favorites, but come on Football indoors) was Roger playing indoor football. We did get to see his team win a few. 

Group photo

Yeah our Saturdays were spent going around the northern suburbs of Chicago, but Mike and wouldn’t have it any other way. We loved every minute of watching these guys play and are looking forward to spring sports. 

Stacy is Recognized

 Stacy from early on knew that she wanted to be a teacher in Special Ed.

She has spent all her teaching years with D300 at Hampshire Middle School. Going from 6th grade and settling with the eighth graders. I could see her dedication to her students. Now D300 has finally recognized it too. She was nominated for Educator of the Year 2023!

They had a dinner honoring the nominees and announcing a winner. 

Stacy is not one to seek out attention or bask in the limelight. She likes to go about her business - do her job -WELL, and go home. Not one for fanfare.

Too bad. She was the well deserved pride of Hampshire Middle School for one evening.

Her friends from HMS

Her Family

She had a good showing of support when they announced her name as a nominee. She was pretty certain she wasn’t gonna to win and didn’t even have a speech ready. (neither did her principal). A 3rd grade teacher from Sleepy Hollow won. In this case it really is wonderful just to be nominated.

It didn’t matter to anyone sitting at her table. She was our winner. 

We all screamed and shouted when she was announced. The biggest and loudest was her son Logan. He told me that “Mom always came and cheered for me, now it’s my turn to support her.” Love him!

Cheers to Mom

Logan just turned 21 a couple weeks ago and bought his mom a toast drink.  He offered to buy me one, but I declined. I thought it was something for just the 2 of them to share.

He has decided to follow in his mothers footsteps and is studying to be a teacher of History and has his sights on coaching Football. 

I’m so proud of you Stacy. You’re a great teacher and a great mentor to your son.❤️

Lights out AGAIN

So our power went our last Friday night. We knew the storms were coming and we both had our phones charged and flashlights and lantern in view. I was in the basement (no surprise there) . Mike joins me just as the power went out. 

It was a chilly night and the damage in the neighborhood was extensive. Our road was blocked by fallen tree, which the township came be cleared before the morning. We head out for my coffee, gotta have coffee and saw this. This is what happened to our neighbors. 

Thru the roof.

2 huge limbs fall thru their roof down to the basement. Fire dept. came and told them they had to leave and turned off their gas - power was already out. They both are in their late eighties and refused to leave. So sad…

Turns out the wind took down some trees that took down 2 power poles 5 houses down from us. One pole had to be replaced - I think they just straighten the other. Anyway wires were hanging all the way down to our house. 

Have to hand it to ComEd they were right there. One morning in full force. 12 trucks.

Lining our street

They needed to get to the pole behind our neighbor nd the clearest path is thru our side yard. Not sure if these guys are idiots or just don’t care. BUT IT RAINED ALL NIGHT. They got the bucket truck stuck in the mud before they could get to the pole. The workers had to climb the pole old school. 

I wonder how they are going to get that truck out. Oh I know get another truck to pull it out. IT RAINED ALL NIGHT! That truck gets stuck too. I went out there told them I appreciate the quick work that they are doing and please could you stay off of our septic field. Then we left the house. I couldn’t watch.

2 truck now stuck

This is what we came home too. Our side yard is destroyed. Breaks my heart.

I know they have a job to do. I know they don’t want to make a mess of anybody’s yard. We have no control over it. They promised to have a landscape company come fix it. I have to trust them. 

2 days later, it storms again. We now have a lake we call Lake ComEd.

Rain, Rain, go away

Lights Out

 We are in the middle of an ice storm. We also live in a neighborhood with many, many large trees. So sometimes are electricity goes out.

We grab the battery operated lantern (bought for just this purpose).  I light some candles. I get a fire going in the fireplace and we wait it out. This one was at night and we got lucky it only lasted about 3 hours.

This is the first one that we have had since I got my new recliner. Electric recliner.

Foot rest Up

It took me a couple of tries trying to climb out of it. I was laughing too hard. See, on vacation the recliner that Mike sat in most nights the foot rest never wanted to go back down. He had to force it. I stayed away from it because of that.  Looked like too much work. Well now I know climbing out wasn’t easy either.

Vacation 2023

 Mike and I like to get away for our anniversary every year. Last year he had shoulder surgery so we didn’t get to go till march. Anniversary is February 14.

We enjoy getting away for a week and playing golf. Sharen asked me ‘why just one week?” I had no idea, but Mike and I both like the idea of warm weather, playing golf, soaking up the sun, sight seeing, and Mike wants to try fishing. I booked 2 weeks.

I found the perfect spot. It was a small (only 20 Condos) private rental with its own fishing dock. It was on Anastasia island near St. Augustine. 

Perfect sunrises

Perfect moonrises

Perfect sunsets 

All from the porches of our condo.

Mike enjoyed fishing and caught the biggest and the best fish.  I told him beginners luck. He catches a beautiful flounder that even had the regular fisherman on the dock envious. They recommended using shrimp for bait (or mud minnows). We used shrimp. Me I catch a slimy skinny thing no one knew what it was. I showed this picture to the kid at the bait shop. He told me it was a lizard fish. Yuck.

A flounder

Lizard fish

The weather was perfect. we got 3 round of golf in. 

Golf partners

The course was really short for women and I was hitting the ball pretty good - I actually beat Mike - for the first time ever - on the front side. I short 43 to his 45.

I really wanted to visit downtown St.Augustine and see the oldest Catholic Church in the US. The streets were very narrow and the houses all looked historic well worth the day walking around getting steps in.

Not made for car traffic

Catholic Church

It was beautiful 

I chose this location because Mike and I both wanted to see the Golf Hall of Fame. It’s in st.Augustine. It was a cooler day and not very many people out. We both enjoyed it. My favorite is still the Baseball HOF and Mikes is the Hockey HOF.

Bill Murray’s restaurant for lunch

I’m glad we stayed the extra week.  the condo was very nice and the beach was practically empty. A few old couples like us sitting around reading. 

Spent a couple hours here

The sand was hard enough for cars to drive on and our walks each day were along the waves.

When I was growing up and taking our yearly vacation to Wisconsin Mom would always bring games and a puzzle in case of rain. I brought along a puzzle, for old times sake. It did rain 2 days out of the 15.  First time I fixed a puzzle on a glass table top. 

Brought the north with me

I still would not ever want to live in Florida. Visiting there for a few weeks is enough for us. The green pollen covered your cars. Ours was parked in an underground parking garage and the place had its own car wash. Still got filthy. The whole strip of houses along the beach lost their walkover piers to hurricane Nicole. Our complex’s was out for 5 months. I guess each state has its good and bad.  I’ve always enjoyed the changing of the seasons. 

We will stay where our kids and grandkids are and just visit the sunshine and warm weather s long s we’re able. 

Puzzle Time

 Holidays are over and it’s time to check out all my latest puzzle gems.

January has been really mild so far. The sun hasn’t shown its shine much,  but the temperature has been over average. Time for some serious puzzle fixing.

My first choice was one I actually got for my birthday from Sharen. She knows I love to do sudoku. We went to a digital paper subscription so I haven’t been getting my daily sudoku puzzle. So what does she do? She finds a jigsaw puzzle that is a sudoku puzzle. I not only had to fix a jigsaw, but a sudoku too.

Moderate Sudoku

The outline was the easy part

I will admit the most puzzling part was sorting all the pieces. Which was ok, cause I enjoy that part of jigsaw fixing. Really there isn’t much I don’t enjoy about jigsaws.

I really really enjoyed this puzzle. It’s going in my do over stash for sure.

Thanks Sharen

On to my next jigsaw. It was a Christmas present from Mike. I love how he and Sharen ‘get me’. Don’t know what to get me - a puzzle will work every time.

I few years back mike and I visited the Puzzle Warehouse in St. Louis. Purchased a few puzzles.  I now get emails from them with an opportunity to create a ‘wish list’ of puzzles that they sell. When those puzzle go on sale a will get a notice. I send the list to Mike so he has an idea of what puzzles I like. I have tendency to change my preferences regularly. He’s pretty smart on purchasing at least a couple of what is on my list.

He will sometimes surprise me with one he thinks I would like. Well this Christmas he got me this one.

Mikes selection

Pretty clever choice.

I mean come on how could he go wrong with quilts.

I